


Five Times Zuko Realized He Loved Someone

by Sholio



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Character Study, F/M, Family, Friendship, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-08-10
Updated: 2010-08-10
Packaged: 2017-10-11 01:01:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,317
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/106553
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sholio/pseuds/Sholio
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What the title says! Spoilers for the series through "The Ember Island Players". Mostly gen with one Zuko/Mai section.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Five Times Zuko Realized He Loved Someone

**1\. Ozai**

Ozai wasn't like other fathers. Even as a small child, Zuko knew this. Other kids' fathers picked them up and played with them, hugged them and gave them words of praise. He'd seen it, so he knew it happened.

But it didn't matter, because if Ozai's affection was doled out sparingly, in tiny smiles and rare pats on the head, then earning those small tokens of affection only made each one more special and precious. And it meant that making his father love him was up to _him_. Affection freely given, Zuko thought, could not possibly mean as much as affection that was fairly earned, through hard work and effort.

He couldn't remember, later, how old he was the first time he saw his father in full ceremonial regalia, standing before a crowd with Crown Prince Iroh, flanking their father the Fire Lord. Zuko knew that he must have been very tiny, because he remembered that his mother was carrying his sister and holding his little hand in her big one. The purpose of the ceremony was lost on him, and he only had eyes for his father anyway, a tall and regal figure in flowing crimson robes. It seemed impossible that short, broad Iroh, who looked flushed and embarrassed, and kept adjusting his collar, was destined to become the next Fire Lord. Surely there had to have been a mistake, because Ozai looked every inch a prince, a hero.

_That's my father_, Zuko thought, and his heart swelled with love and pride until he thought it would burst.

His father was the most impressive person in the world, and Zuko resolved, then and there, that the most important thing he could do was to earn his father's respect and love. He might not be worthy yet, but he'd spend his whole life trying, if that was what it took.

* * *

**2\. Azula**

Zuko couldn't remember not having a little sister. She was born thirteen months after he was, and in his earliest memories, she was always there -- a tiny waddling toddler with wide golden eyes, dogging his heels and clumsily emulating the simple firebending forms that his mother taught him.

She was small and soft and smelled good, and though Zuko was sometimes jealous when his mother cuddled and petted her, she'd always cuddle and pet _him_ next, so it didn't matter all that much. Azula liked to break his toys and sometimes she tried to hit him, but his mother said that babies were always like that -- she just didn't know any better, and she'd be gentler when she was old enough to understand that hitting and hair-pulling hurt other people.

Sometimes Zuko stood on tiptoes and looked into her crib, and watched her sleeping with her little fist curled against her pink cheek. She was so small and helpless. If any earthbenders snuck into the Fire Nation and tried to hurt her, he'd make them sorry, even though all the firebending he could manage so far was some little fizzly sparks. But if they tried to take her away, he would put himself in the way and make them stop. He was sure of it, right down to his toes.

Zuko couldn't remember a time when he hadn't loved his baby sister. It was just there, like she was, a part of his bone and blood and soul.

* * *

**3\. Iroh**

If he allowed himself to stop and think for even a moment, Zuko had a feeling that he would fall into an abyss from which there was no coming back. He had always believed that an impossible task could be accomplished by breaking it down into smaller tasks -- _this_ firebending move was far too difficult, but a series of easier moves could be learned, and in a year, or two years, the difficult one would have become easy.

But there were no smaller tasks here. There was only the great huge world, and somewhere in it, the Avatar -- the missing Avatar that the most powerful firebenders in the world, with all the resources of the Fire Nation behind them, had been unable to find.

And there was him: a thirteen-year-old kid, alone, terrified. Three days ago, half his face had been burned away. He was still dizzy and weak, and with his eye covered with bandages, he had no idea if he would ever see out of it again. His hair had been raggedly burned off on that side, and he could still smell the stink of it whenever he moved.

He couldn't break the impossible task down into smaller, possible tasks -- because every one of them was impossible. He didn't even know how he was going to leave the island -- what was he supposed to do, beg his father for a ride on a ship going towards the mainland?

Tears threatened, and he forced them back with a tide of fierce, bitter anger. Staring at himself in the mirror, at the half a face that his father had left him, he thought: _I can do this._ If he couldn't handle anything else, he'd take it minute by minute.

Small tasks.

_First,_ he thought, _I will shave off as much of this burned hair as possible. Then I will pack. Then ... I will decide on my next task. I can do this._

He raised the ice-sharp edge of the dagger to his scalp, very deliberately not reading the words engraved in the blade. His hands were weak and shaky, his depth perception poor; his first attempt left a line of blood across his scalp, half-hidden in the ragged fringe of his hair. Drawing a deep breath, he placed the dagger to try again.

"Would you like some help with that, Prince Zuko?"

Zuko closed his eyes, seeking in vain for a calm center in the maelstrom of fury that had become his soul. Of all the people to show up _now_ ... he did not need to be patronized, or offered tea or platitudes or, worst of all, pity. "I'm fine, Uncle," he snapped. "I don't need your help."

Footsteps approached him from behind, and Zuko glared at his uncle's shadowy shape in the mirror. "There is no shame in needing help," his uncle said, and a hand closed over his, and took the dagger away. "You are hurting yourself," he added, and smoothed a hand over Zuko's scalp, down the jagged cut, bringing it away stained with blood.

"I've had worse, or haven't you noticed?"

"Sit down, Prince Zuko," his uncle said gently. "Let me do this for you. It would make an old man happy."

His voice quivered a little at the end. Zuko ignored it; maybe the guy was finally slipping into senility, like Azula said. But he didn't have the energy to stand up for himself right now -- it was hard enough just keeping a lid on his emotions and not lashing out, immolating himself and everything around him.

He sat crosslegged on the floor. Iroh knelt behind him, and Zuko closed his one remaining healthy eye, feeling the burned skin around the other one tug painfully under the bandages as it tried to follow suit.

Iroh's hands were deft and sure -- and gentle, sliding over his hair, combing and cutting. Since his mother went away, no one had touched him like that. He tried to focus on the anger, because feeling anything else right now would be a fatal mistake. Anger was all that held him up, kept him going.

Iroh was prattling on, as he always did, something about a ship and provisioning and troop strength and -- wait, that last part had been a question. "What?" Zuko said, rousing himself.

"I said that I don't think your father will allow us to take three regiments, but perhaps two would not be unreasonable." Iroh chuckled softly. "He owes me that much, my brother, no matter our differences over the years. Well, Prince Zuko? Do you think that two regiments of firebenders plus support personnel will be adequate for our journey? The ship is old, but personally I believe that the older vessels are more seaworthy, especially in heavy seas, which we will surely encounter in our travels."

"You keep saying 'we' and 'our'," Zuko said, struggling in a wash of emotions that threatened to sweep the anger away. He tried to hold onto it. "What are you talking about?"

His uncle's hands moved through his hair, as surely as he'd seen them do on the training ground -- parting, stroking, smoothing, cutting. "I think that your quest is a worthy one, and I would be honored to accompany you, Prince Zuko."

"I --" Zuko couldn't _think._ He hadn't anticipated this. "I don't think that's an option."

Iroh chuckled. "I am the Dragon of the West, and also, a bit of a political embarrassment -- the disinherited crown prince, you know. I don't think my brother will object. I only hope that an old man will not slow you down too much on your quest." Another soft laugh, as he delicately drew up Zuko's remaining hair, taking great care not to tug on the healing burn. "Of course, the two regiments of firebenders that I am offering, plus the ship that accompanies them, are likely to make me a somewhat more valuable companion on your journey. And we can continue your firebending training. What do you think, Prince Zuko?"

The threatening tears finally came. Zuko slumped back, and found himself resting against Iroh's chest. His head felt so odd, so strange and light without most of his hair. He reached up a hand to wipe at his face, and instinctively touched the bandage, finding it damp.

Perhaps his face wasn't a totally lost cause. Perhaps his entire _life_ wasn't a lost cause.

"I think --" Zuko cleared his throat, struggling for composure. "I don't think that it would slow me down _too_ much. Having you on board. I mean. Yes."

* * *

**4\. Mai**

Zuko liked Mai because she was nothing like the other girls in his parents' circle of friends. Most girls of Zuko's acquaintance -- other than his sister, obviously, who was in a class of her own -- were giggling simpletons who seemed to have nothing on their minds but raising themselves in the palace social hierarchy, whether by attracting a prince's eye or simply cultivating him as a well-placed political "friend". Zuko disliked few things as intensely as palace politics, which meant he tended to stay as far away as possible from girls who began giggling behind their fans and batting their eyes at him.

Granted, living on a ship for three years tended to limit the pool of potential dating options; there were a few women among the soldiers under his command, but all of them were not only off limits but, usually, ten to fifteen years older than he was.

But then there was Mai. Sometimes Zuko wondered if dating her was nothing more than a new and different form of his usual masochism, since he rarely had any clue where he stood with her, either before or after his sister conspired to set them up in Ba Sing Se. But ... Mai was _interesting_. She never told him to lighten up and smile more, and she always said exactly what she thought about every one of the nobles and generals and even the Fire Sages. Ironically, the one person who never told Zuko he'd never get anywhere in life if he didn't learn to smile was the one person who made him smile on a regular basis, even if she tended to look at him afterwards as if she couldn't figure out what the joke was.

The two of them weren't in a serious relationship, though. At least Zuko kept reminding himself of that. She probably didn't even like him much -- Mai didn't like _anything_ much -- and being around her made him unhappy and uncertain as often as it made him glad. So what if seeing her was one of the few bright spots in an existence that had become unrelentingly gloomy otherwise. She'd probably just laugh at him if he said so -- or, well, not _laugh_ exactly, because Mai didn't, but smirk at him unpleasantly. She wasn't any more serious about him than he was about her.

And so on, and so forth.

But he wrote her a goodbye note. When it came right down to it -- when he looked around the palace and considered the people he knew -- Mai was the only one who might possibly miss him a little bit. (Well, and also Uncle, but Zuko was definitely taking Uncle Iroh with him.) Even if she didn't actually miss him at all, maybe his note would make her smile.

As he placed it carefully where she would find it, Zuko tried to summon up one of Mai's rare and secret smiles, a pleasant memento to take with him on the road. Instead, a whole hurricane of memories assailed him: not just Mai smiling, but also Mai blushing; Mai turning from him in hurt; Mai dumping a bucket of water over his head; Mai smacking him with a fish from a vendor's cart in Ba Sing Se; Mai with her face twisted in anger; Mai looking up softly from his lap. The smell of her hair. The husky tones of her voice.

_Oh,_ he thought, and then, _OH. So that's what it feels like._

A minute later, the thought crossed his mind that it just figured -- of all the people in the Fire Nation, only _he_ would realize he'd fallen in love while breaking up via letter right before running off to join a stupid rebellion and never seeing her again.

"I hate my life," he muttered aloud, and went to find his father.

* * *

**5\. Team Avatar**

Like coming down with a fever, it hit him all of a sudden, the night after the absolutely _terrible_ play that they'd watched on Ember Island.

They'd all been training hard throughout the day, spurred on to new heights by that rather terrifying look at how things _might_ go. Now, sore and tired, they lounged around the campfire in the courtyard of his family's old house, too exhausted to do more than nibble on the dinner of rice and fish that Suki had cooked. Like all Earth Nation food, it was horribly bland, even disregarding the fact that the fish was half burnt and the rice still crunchy.

Zuko was pretty sure it was one of the worst meals that he'd had in his life, aside from that one period when he was starving to death in the Earth Nation wilderness. On the other hand, he thought gloomily, tomorrow night was Sokka's turn to cook, and Sokka's culinary skills did not extend beyond Meat, Charred And Partly Raw.

"The Fire Lord won't have to bother killing us," Toph remarked from across the fire. "Not if Suki beats him to it with her cooking."

Suki sat up. "Oh really? Says the person who almost killed us all with _her_ cooking."

"Hello?" Toph said, waving a hand rhetorically in front of her face. "Deathcap and freshbell mushrooms look kind of similar except for the _color_, you know. Or so I'm told. Loudly."

"It's just a good thing Katara was stirring the cookpot! There's a _reason_ your cooking privileges have been revoked!"

Toph lay back and folded her hands under her head. "I'm not complaining about that. I get to lay around while the rest of you bring me food. That's kinda cool, actually."

"Betcha she did it on purpose," Sokka said behind his hand to Katara, in a loud, carrying whisper, and a second later was flung several feet from the campfire when a sudden lump of rock rose under him and then just as quickly subsided back into the ground.

"Guys," Aang said. He'd worked harder than any of them, and he was a tired, limp heap of Avatar, with Momo on top. He looked like he was about to fall asleep in his rice bowl.

Sokka jumped to his feet and dusted himself off. "You know what we need? A night swim. C'mon."

There was a chorus of weary complaints. "Come on," Sokka insisted, hooking an arm around Suki's waist and tugging her to her feet. "It'll relax us. Look! The moon's still up!"

"You want me to go down to the beach so that you can flirt with your ex?" Suki struggled halfheartedly, but she was smiling.

Sokka sputtered.

"A swim does sound pleasant," Katara said. "Nice soothing water is good for sore muscles. And we'll all sleep well afterwards."

"As long as you don't plan on turning this into waterbending practice," Aang muttered, yawning and stretching as he stood.

"No practice!" Sokka snapped. "No _work_! This is play. Hustle, hustle."

Zuko groaned and put his head down on his arms. He'd never met a group of people who slacked off as much as this bunch did, at least not outside the parlors and gardens of Fire Nation high society. How they managed to keep winning their fights -- most of them, anyway, for certain values of "winning" -- was beyond him. He knew from annoying experience, though, that trying to stay behind would inevitably result in Aang dragging him anyway, or Katara dropping a long-distance wave on his head, or Sokka bringing back handfuls of wet sand to stuff down his collar.

... and sure enough, here was Aang, newly re-energized and grabbing his arm. "Come on, Zuko, you know you want to!"

"Rrgh," Zuko said, making total deadweight of himself. "Don't want to. Go away."

"C'mon," Aang wheedled, trying the other arm. "You're holding everyone up."

Zuko raised his head. Sokka and Suki were hovering at the top of the path to the beach, while Toph, with her arms held out to the sides, was walking the low wall along the path. Katara was collecting the dinner bowls in a keeping-busy-while-waiting kind of way.

They were waiting.

For him.

And that was when it hit him, when _everything_ hit him, and all he could do was just stare.

"That's a really weird look on your face, Zuko," Aang said, turning his head nearly upside-down to get a better view. "Are you okay?"

"It's probably just Suki's cooking making him sick," Toph called.

"Oh, you are getting _wet,_ kid," Suki said, laughing.

Zuko managed to get his feet under him. "I'm okay," he said. "I'm okay. Really. Um." He was afraid to talk at all, afraid of what sort of babbling nightmare might come out if he gave his uncontrollable mouth a chance to embarrass him. "Let's go swim?" he tried, and Aang giggled and raced ahead, using a little rush of airbending to pounce on an unsuspecting Sokka from behind. Katara abandoned the bowls and joined them.

As he followed the rest of his _(friends)_ down the path in the moonlight, listening to their laughter and friendly taunts, Zuko realized that he was grinning. It took him a moment longer to recognize the warm, contented feeling spreading through him. _Oh, right. That's being happy._

Because he was. He actually was. It was especially stupid because in a few days they'd be in the fight of their lives, with little hope of winning. In all likelihood, they were all going to die. But, well, he'd risked death a lot of times in his life, and for far less cause.

Zuko had a lot of regrets, but joining Aang's group wasn't one of them. Not at all.

_I'm where I need to be,_ he thought, looking up at the moon. And he was, finally, where he _wanted_ to be, too.

He'd gone around the world trying to find his way home, and come all the way back to the place he'd started, only to discover that home wasn't a place at all. Home was people. And at long last, maybe, just maybe, he'd found it.


End file.
